Stochastic opponent modeling agents: A case study with Hamas

TitleStochastic opponent modeling agents: A case study with Hamas
Publication TypeJournal Articles
Year of Publication2008
AuthorsMannes A, Sliva A, V.S. Subrahmanian, Wilkenfeld J
JournalProceedings of ICCCD
Date Published2008///
Abstract

Stochastic Opponent Modeling Agents (SOMA) have beenproposed as a paradigm for reasoning about cultural groups,
terror groups, and other socio-economic-political-military
organizations worldwide. In this paper, we describe a case
study that shows how SOMA was used to model the
behavior of the terrorist organization, Hamas. Our team,
consisting of a mix of computer scientists, policy experts,
and political scientists, were able to understand new facts
about Hamas of which even seasoned Hamas experts may
not have been aware. This paper briefly overviews SOMA
rules, explains how several thousand SOMA rules for
Hamas were automatically derived, and then describes a few
key findings about Hamas, enabled by this framework.